fellow's mother to bear at this time of day. They are fast married, and can't be unmarried. There, there! I know that! You needn't tell me that, Papa Meagles. I know it very well. What was it I said just now? That it was a great comfort they continued happy. It is to be hoped they will still continue happy. It is to be hoped Pretty One will do everything she can to make my poor fellow happy, and keep him contented. Papa and Mama Meagles, we had better say no more about it. We never did look at this subject from the same side, and we never shall. There, there! Now I am good."

Truly, having by this time said everything she could say in maintenance of her wonderfully mythical position, and in admonition to Mr. Meagles that he must not expect to bear his honors of alliance too cheaply, Mrs. Gowan was disposed to forego the rest. If Mr. Meagles had submitted to a glance of entreaty from Mrs. Meagles, and an expressive gesture from Clennam, he would have left her in the undisturbed enjoyment of this state of mind. But Pet was the darling and pride of his heart; and if he could ever have championed her more devotedly, or loved her better, than in the days when she was the sunlight of his house, it would have been now, when, in its daily grace and delight, she was lost to it.

"Mrs. Gowan, ma'am," said Mr. Meagles, "I have been a plain man all my life. If I was to try-no matter whether on myself, or somebody else, or both-any genteel mystifications, I should probably

not succeed in them."

"Papa Meagles," returned the Dowager, with an affable smile, but with the bloom on her cheeks standing out a little more vividly than usual, as the neighbouring surface became paler, "probably not."

"Therefore, my good madam," said Mr. Meagles, at great pains to restrain himself, "I hope I may, without offence, ask to have no such mystifications played off upon me."

"Mama Meagles," observed Mrs. Gowan, "your good man is incomprehensible."

Her turning to that worthy lady was an artifice to bring her into the discussion, quarrel with her, and vanquish her. Mr. Meagles interposed to prevent that consummation.

"Mother," said he, "you are inexpert, my dear, and it is not a fair match. Let me beg of you to remain quiet. Come, Mrs. Gowan, come! Let us try to be sensible; let us try to be good-natured; let us try to be fair. Don't you pity Henry, and I won't pity Pet. And don't be one-sided, my dear madam; it's not considerate, it's not kind. Don't let us say that we hope Pet will make Henry happy, or even that we hope Henry will make Pet happy," (Mr. Meagles himself did not look happy as he spoke the words) "but let us hope they will make each other happy."

"Yes sure, and there leave it, father," said Mrs. Meagles the kind-hearted and comfortable.

"Why mother, no," returned Mr. Meagles, "not exactly there. I can't quite leave it there; I must say just half-a-dozen words more. Mrs. Gowan, I hope I am not over sensitive. I believe I don't

look it."

"Indeed you do not," said Mrs. Gowan, shaking her head and the great green fan together, for emphasis.

"Thank you, ma'am ; that's well. Notwithstanding which, I feel a little-I don't want to use a strong word-now shall I say hurt ?" asked Mr. Meagles at once with frankness and moderation, and with a conciliatory appeal in his tone.

66

Say what you like," answered Mrs. Gowan. "It is perfectly indifferent to me."

"No, no, don't say that," urged Mr. Meagles, "because that's not responding amiably. I feel a little hurt, when I hear references made to consequences having been foreseen, and to its being too late now, and so forth."

"Do you, Papa Meagles?" said Mrs. Gowan. surprised."

"I am not "Well, ma'am," reasoned Mr. Meagles, "I was in hopes you would have been at least surprised, because to hurt me wilfully on so tender a subject is surely not generous.'

"I am not responsible," said Mrs. Gowan, "for your conscience, you know."

Poor Mr. Meagles looked aghast with astonishment.

"If I am unluckily obliged to carry a cap about with me which is yours and fits you,' pursued Mrs. Gowan, "don't blame me for its pattern, Papa Meagles, I beg!"

"Why, good Lord, ma'am!" Mr. Meagles broke out, "that's as much as to state

"Now, Papa Meagles, Papa Meagles," said Mrs. Gowan, who became extremely deliberate and prepossessing in manner whenever that gentleman became at all warm, "perhaps, to prevent confusion, I had better speak for myself than trouble your kindness to speak for me. It's as much as to state, you begin. If you please, I will finish the sentence. It is as much as to state-not that I wish to press it, or even recall it, for it is of no use now, and my only wish is to make the best of existing circumstances-that from the first to the last I always objected to this match of yours, and at a very late period yielded a most unwilling consent to it."

"Mother!" cried Mr. Meagles. "Do you hear this! Arthur! Do you hear this!"

"The room being of a convenient size," said Mrs. Gowan, looking about as she fanned herself, "and quite charmingly adapted in all respects to conversation, I should imagine that I am audible in any part of it."

Some moments passed in silence, before Mr. Meagles could hold himself in his chair with sufficient security to prevent his breaking out of it at the next word he spoke. At last he said: "Ma'am, I am very unwilling to revive them, but I must remind you what my opinions and my course were, all along, on that unfortunate subject."

O, my dear sir!" said Mrs. Gowan, smiling and shaking her head with accusatory intelligence, "they were well understood by me, I assure you."

"I never, ma'am," said Mr. Meagles, "knew unhappiness before

that time, I never knew anxiety before that time. It was a time of such distress to me, that." That Mr. Meagles really could say no more about it, in short, but passed his handkerchief before his face. "I understood the whole affair," said Mrs. Gowan, composedly looking over her fan. "As you have appealed to Mr. Clennam, I may appeal to Mr. Clennam, too. He knows whether I did or not."

"I am very unwilling," said Clennam, looked to by all parties, "to take any share in this discussion, more especially because I wish to preserve the best understanding and the clearest relations with Mr. Henry Gowan. I have very strong reasons indeed, for entertaining that wish. Mrs. Gowan attributed certain views of furthering the marriage to my friend here, in conversation with me before it took place; and I endeavoured to undeceive her. I represented that I knew him (as I did and do), to be strenuously opposed to it, both in opinion and action."

"You see?" said Mrs. Gowan, turning the palms of her hands towards Mr. Meagles, as if she were Justice herself, representing to him that he had better confess, for he had not a leg to stand on. "You see? Very good! Now, Papa and Mama Meagles both!" here she rose; "allow me to take the liberty of putting an end to this rather formidable controversy. I will not say another word upon its merits. I will only say that it is an additional proof of what one knows from all experience; that this kind of thing never answers-as my poor fellow himself would say, that it never pays-in one word, that it never does."

Mr. Meagles asked, What kind of thing?

"It is in vain," said Mrs. Gowan, "for people to attempt to get on together who have such extremely different antecedents; who are jumbled against each other in this accidental, matrimonial sort of way; and who cannot look at the untoward circumstance which has shaken them together, in the same light. It never does."

Mr. Meagles was beginning, "Permit me to say, ma'am"No, don't!" returned Mrs. Gowan. "Why should you! It is an ascertained fact. It never does. I will therefore, if you please, go my way, leaving you to yours. I shall at all times be happy to receive my poor fellow's pretty wife, and I shall always make a point of being on the most affectionate terms with her. But as to these terms, semi-family and semi-stranger, semi-goring and semi-boring, they form a state of things quite amusing in its impracticability. I assure you it never does."

The Dowager here made a smiling obeisance, rather to the room than to any one in it, and therewith took a final farewell of Papa and Mama Meagles. Clennam stepped forward to hand her to the PillBox, which was at the service of all the Pills in Hampton Court Palace; and she got into that vehicle with distinguished serenity, and was driven away.

Thenceforth the Dowager, with a light and careless humor, often recounted to her particular acquaintance how, after a hard trial, she had found it impossible to know those people who belonged to Henry's wife, and who had made that desperate set to catch him. Whether

she had come to the conclusion beforehand, that to get rid of them would give her favorite pretence a better air, might save her some occasional inconvenience, and could risk no loss (the pretty creature being fast married, and her father devoted to her), was best known to herself. Though this history has its opinion on that point too, and decidedly in the affirmative.

CHAPTER IX.

APPEARANCE AND DISAPPEARANCE.

"ARTHUR, my dear boy," said Mr. Meagles, on the evening of the following day, "Mother and I have been talking this over, and we don't feel comfortable in remaining as we are. That elegant connexion of ours-that dear lady who was here yesterday

"I understand," said Arthur.

"Even that affable and condescending ornament of society," pursued Mr. Meagles, "may misrepresent us, we are afraid. We could bear a great deal, Arthur, for her sake; but we think we would rather not bear that, if it was all the same to her."

"Good," said Arthur. "Go on.

"You see," proceeded Mr. Meagles, "it might put us wrong with our son-in-law, it might even put us wrong with our daughter, and it might lead to a great deal of domestic trouble. You see, don't

you?"

"Yes indeed," returned Arthur, "there is much reason in what you say." He had glanced at Mrs. Meagles, who was always on the good and sensible side; and a petition had shone out of her honest face that he would support Mr. Meagles in his present inclinings.

"So we are very much disposed, are Mother and I," said Mr. Meagles, "to pack up bag and baggage and go among the Allongers and Marshongers once more. I mean, we are very much disposed to be off, strike right through France into Italy, and see our Pet."

"And I don't think," replied Arthur, touched by the motherly anticipation in the bright face of Mrs. Meagles (she must have been very like her daughter, once), " that you could do better. And if you ask me for my advice, it is that you set off to-morrow."

"Is it really, though?" said Mr. Meagles. "Mother, this is being backed in an idea?"

Mother, with a look which thanked Clennam in a manner very agreeable to him, answered that it was indeed.

"The fact is, besides, Arthur," said Mr. Meagles, the old cloud coming over his face, "that my son-in-law is already in debt again, and that I suppose I must clear him again. It may be as well, even on this account, that I should step over there, and look him up in a friendly way. Then again, here's Mother foolishly anxious (and yet

naturally too) about Pet's state of health, and that she should not be left to feel lonesome at the present time. It's undeniably a long way off, Arthur, and a strange place for the poor love under all the circumstances. Let her be as well cared for as any lady in that land, still it is a long way off. Just as Home is Home though it's never so Homely, why you see," said Mr. Meagles, adding a new version to the proverb, "Rome is Rome though it's never so Romely."

"All perfectly true," observed Arthur, "and all sufficient reasons for going."

"I am glad you think so; it decides me. Mother, my dear, you may get ready. We have lost our pleasant interpreter (she spoke three foreign languages beautifully, Arthur; you have heard her many a time), and you must pull me through it, Mother, as well as you can. I require a deal of pulling through, Arthur," said Mr. Meagles, shaking his head, "a deal of pulling through. I stick at everything beyond a noun-substantive,-and I stick at him, if he's at all a tight one.”

He

"Now I think of it," returned Clennam, "there's Cavalletto. shall go with you if you like. I could not afford to lose him, but you will bring him safe back."

"Well! I am much obliged to you, my boy," said Mr. Meagles, turning it over, "but I think not. No, I think I'll be pulled through by Mother. Caval-looro (I stick at his very name to start with, and it sounds like the chorus to a comic song), is so necessary to you, that I don't like the thought of taking him away. More than that, there's no saying when we may come home again; and it would never do to take him away for an indefinite time. The cottage is not what it was. It only holds two little people less than it ever did, Pet, and her poor unfortunate maid Tattycoram; but it seems empty now. Once out of it, there's no knowing when we may come back to it. No, Arthur, I'll be pulled through by Mother."

They would do best by themselves perhaps, after all, Clennam thought; therefore did not press his proposal.

"If you would come down and stay here for a change, when it wouldn't trouble you," Mr. Meagles resumed, "I should be glad to think--and so would Mother too, I know-that you were brightening up the old place with a bit of life it was used to when it was full, and that the Babies on the wall there, had a kind eye upon them sometimes. You so belong to the spot, and to them, Arthur, and we should every one of us have been so happy if it had fallen out-but, let us see-how's the weather for travelling, now?" Mr. Meagles broke off, cleared his throat, and got up to look out of window.

They agreed that the weather was of high promise; and Clennam kept the talk in that safe direction until it had become easy again, when he gently diverted it to Henry Gowan, and his quick sense and agreeable qualities when he was delicately dealt with; he likewise dwelt on the indisputable affection he entertained for his wife. Clennam did not fail of his effect upon good Mr. Meagles, whom these commendations greatly cheered; and who took Mother to witness that the single and cordial desire of his heart in reference to their